On January 30th, Obituary performed at the first annual Florida Metal Fest in Tampa, FL. During their set they were joined by Savatage frontman / founder Jon Oliva for rousing renditions of the Savatage classics "City Beneath The Surface" and "The Dungeons Are Calling". Check out the fan-fiolmed video below.

Brad Parmerter continues his Trans-Siberian Orchestra Interview Series with an in-depth discussion with Oliva about Wacken 2015, the future of Savatage, TSO's latest Letters From The Labyrinth, songwriting, his role helping to prepare TSO for their tours, the long-rumored Romanov album, the end of Savatage/beginning of TSO and much more. An excerpt follows:

BP: If you wrote the headline after Wacken for a metal magazine and also a headline for your own personal journal, what would they be?

Jon Oliva: “For a metal magazine I would, I don't know what I would say something like, 'Finally after how many years, we get to see Savatage again. It was great blah blah blah.' My personal journal would be like, 'I'm fucking so happy that this is over.' [laughing] I think it was cool that people witnessed something like that where they got to see Savatage, they got to see TSO, then they got to see Savatage and TSO together on two stages at the same time. I thought that was for any music fan or any concertgoer who loves going to festivals, I think that would be something like, ‘Wow, we saw something we've never seen before. It was great.’

“It was a lot of fun though. It was nerve-wracking, yeah, but I'm glad we did it and I'm glad that Savatage legacy, that's the way, if I was ever to put Savatage to sleep forever, that's the way I wanted to do it. Now if we decide to do something else, which has been talked about, it has to be as big as that. It has to be at that level. I'm not gonna go back and play Bang Your Head Festival with eighty lights, you know what I'm saying? It's just like taking a step backwards. You gotta keep pushing, up the ante. And that show, people are still talking about it. And I think people are gonna be talking about it for a long time, that we dared invest that much of our own money mind you.

“That show cost me and Paul over a million dollars to do of our money. Not counting the money we got from Wacken, that basically paid for food and hotels. They paid us well but the money we invested because Paul and I, we wanted to do something that had never been done before. Well, what's left to do in music? Well now you have two festival stages running simultaneously, at the same time, with two bands playing the same songs, that's never been done before or at least I've never seen it done before, at least not on the level that we did it. That's what Paul and I wanted. We wanted to do something special because who knows what's gonna go on and I just wanted, I for me, I wanted to know that if that was the last performance of Savatage ever, that it was at that level and not in some shitty fucking bar in Germany or something like that, you know what I'm saying. That's the way, and I'm not saying it's the last thing we're gonna do. Obviously we're still breathing and we're still above ground so, but if it was...if I got hit by a truck tomorrow, at least in heaven I can go, ‘Well Criss, I took care of the Savatage thing. Where's my room?’”

BP: How do you get bigger than Wacken though, if you won't go smaller than that?

Jon Oliva: “Well I mean if the opportunity... you could do, you have to set the scenario. Say for instance someone said we want you to do the Coliseum in Rome or something like that... or the Amphitheater in Greece where the Parthenon is, where Yanni did something there. It would have to be something like that. I mean, Paul was mentioning that we've got offers to do something in Asia or Paul and I have been talking about maybe doing something here in America. Something special and that's either we have to create the scenario or the scenario has to be right, to where we could do something at that level.”

BP: There are still a lot of passionate Savatage fans who, while amazingly passionate, only want a return to the old days.

Jon Oliva: “Yes, they're very loyal. Yeah, they're very loyal, but what, really, what kind of bothers me or upsets me is that if...I'm so thankful that people love what I do and I'm really thankful of that and I can't thank everybody enough but you know it's my life and it's my decision. I didn't get shoved off stage because I wouldn't wear a tuxedo or anything like that. I made my choices because I'm looking long term. I'm not looking to have my ego stroked. I don't need that in my life anymore. I need to, I wanna create something that's gonna last for a long time, long after I'm dead. You know, and that's what I'm trying to do. I gave all the Savatage fans the best years of my life from the day I turned 21 to the day I turned 40. That's all I did was Savatage. That was the best years of my life. I lost my, I lost my house, I lost my cars, I got divorced. Thank god my wife forgave me and remarried me, but I sacrificed everything for that band and you know, people don't really...it kind of bothers me a little bit people don't really understand that. How much that, how much I went through to keep that band together. And I would think people would be happy that I'm happy. You know, and to say, "Jon gave, if this is what he wants to do great, he's writing great stuff and blah blah blah..." And that's how I want it, you know. I wish the Savatage fans would feel that, you know, this is my decision.

“It's nothing that was forced on me or anything like that. This is what I want to do because I want, I want to push my limits until the day I'm dead. I want to keep trying to come up with different things and new ideas and I gave you guys 25 years of my life with Savatage. You know, the best years of my life. You know while everybody else was living their lives I was sleeping in fucking vans and buses and traveling around playing in front of 200 people in a beer bar and doing all that shit in the early days and then legging around Europe and all the stuff that we went through and the, you know, all the chaos and the, you know, the tragedy of losing Criss and everything like that. You know it's just, it was time for me to take a step back and say look to the...what do you want to do when you're in your 50s and 60s. Obviously it's not running around singing "24 Hours Ago”. You know, it's not gonna happen. So, this is my decision and I'm very happy right now. I'm a very happy guy. I've worked with brilliant people, the office staff is fucking amazing, my crew people, my engineers, our sound engineers, all the musicians that we work with, all of the vocalists that we work with, all the people behind the scenes like Danielle our vocal girl, our vocal coach and trainer and stuff. There's so many people and they're all great people and we're building this organization that I think is going to last for a long time as long as Paul and I keep our vision going and keep working hard like we're doing.”

Listen to an audio excerpt below. Read the complete interview at this location.